1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device management apparatus, client apparatus, and device management method for installing, for example, a device driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to use computer peripheral devices in a newly purchased personal computer (PC) or in a PC whose operating system (OS) is re-installed, the user must install device drivers corresponding to such devices in the PC. A large number of devices exist on a large-scale network such as a corporate network or the like, but devices normally used by the user are only on some of them. For this reason, conventionally, when the user installs a device driver in the PC, he or she must find a target device from a large number of devices.
As one of several techniques that support installation of device drivers, a technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-054739 is known. With this technique, function-dependent frequencies of use are monitored in correspondence with respective functions of individual devices, and if a new function corresponding to each function is available, a driver is installed on the PC which requires that function.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-149362 describes a technique which calculates and displays a recommendation level as a selection criterion of a printer driver to be installed based on acquired print log information. With this technique, the user can easily select a printer which can be easily used and can install a corresponding driver in the computer. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-149362 describes that the recommendation level is calculated by:Recommendation level=i*(effective speed)+k/(average wait time)
(i and k: constants used to weight respective parameters)
The effective speed and average wait time can be expressed based on the acquired print log information (job information) by:Effective speed=(number of output sheets per day)/(effective running hours per day)Average wait time=((effective running hours per day)/D)*((effective running hours per day)/(number of jobs per day))
(D: printer running hours per day)
The user selects a printer to be used with reference to a displayed printer list in descending order of recommendation level with numbers based on the recommendation levels, and a displayed user limitation presence/absence result, and installs a printer driver of the selected printer.
However, the technique described in the above reference merely presents devices frequently used by a plurality of users in place of a specific user. The conventional technique does not support the specific user to select a device he or she normally uses, and cannot reduce the load on each individual user upon installation of a device driver.